Stalin’s Death

Robert Service, Stalin: A Biography (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004)

Author’s note: In 2013, a 1953 autopsy of Stalin was discovered in the Soviet archives, which seemed to negate the conspiracy theory that Stalin was poisoned. He apparently died of a stroke.

EXTENDED ENDNOTES

ALL notes correspond to the endnotes in Patriotic Betrayal, supply additional information or evidence, and should be read together.

Note 1: FYSA/CIA funds: Simons insisted that administrative funds to the International Commission be granted in quarterly installments. For the three months, November 1, 1953 to January 31, 1954, Simons sent a check for $5,000. But the annual budget for administrative funds from September 1, 1953 to September 1, 1954 was $30,640, indicating additional funding. M/NSA Box 103 (FYSA) That figure included 6 desk officers, Bill Ellis, Arnold Schucter, Gene Mihaly, Richard Rosecrance, Helen Jean Rogers, and Paul Sigmund from Harvard University, plus Bob Williams from Boston University, but excludes the salaries of the International Affairs vice president and assistant. In 2014 dollars, the 1954 budget equals roughly $265,000.

Note 5: CIA activity in Japan: Tim Weiner reported extensively on CIA covert activity in Japan in the New York Times (October 9, 1994), and observed that the “full story remains hidden.” He wrote that the CIA not only supported the Liberal Democrats but actively worked to undermine their opponents. “It infiltrated the Japan Socialist Party, which it suspected was receiving secret financial support from Moscow, and placed agents in youth groups, student groups and labor groups, former C.I.A. officers said.” Another former CIA official quoted in the story said operation, which featured secret payments to Japanese politicians: “That is the heart of darkness and I’m not comfortable talking about it, because it worked.”

Additional information on CIA funding for the World Assembly of Youth meeting in Singapore in 1954: According to Richard Aldrich, FYSA put in $114,000 for WAY in Singapore, while the CIA-funded Asian Foundation supplied $50,000 in travel grants. (Hidden Hand, pps. 462-3)

Note 24: Secret access to Fulbright Applicants: In his March 25, 1958 memo, Bruce Larkin wrote that the Fulbright applications “are highly confidential, and should be kept in a locked filing cabinet.” They were to be returned to the International Institute of Education but many were not. Archival documents in the USNSA collection indicate that NSA staff frequently reported to one another that so and so was sure to get a Fulbright, suggesting the relationship was well established by 1958. See, for example:

September 12, 1952, H/NSA Box 140 (SE Asia: ’51-’52) Frank Fisher report indicating that NSA hoped for a “slot on Fulbright,” a reference to the Fulbright Foundation Board that selected awardees. There is no evidence in the annual reports for the Institute for International Education, which administered the Fulbright program, that NSA was ever represented.

December 2, 1952, H/NSA Box 217 (NUS: India) Helen Jean Rogers reported to Frank Fisher that international affairs vice president Herb Eisenberg, “has rejected Bob Meagher going to India on a Fulbright.” Since Eisenberg was no longer in office when this was written, his action must have occurred earlier. As a consequence, Rogers reported that Avrea Ingram was therefore reluctant to send Meagher to a national union of students in India meeting.

December 6, 1952, H/NSA Box 217 (NUS: India) Frank Fisher memo to international staff that “Merrill Freed is likely to receive a Fulbright to India.” In a 2007 interview with Merrill Freed, he said he applied for India because his only language was English and England was too competitive. He had been active NSA at the University of Chicago between 1950 and 1952. Retrospectively, he felt the NSA connection explained how he got a Fulbright, since he had zero knowledge of India. In fact, when he got to New Delhi, the director of the Fulbright program refused to shake his hand, and informed Freed that she had voted against his Fulbright award. Most awards were given to graduate students working toward a Ph.D., while Freed had no ambition other than “to see another culture.” While in India, Freed had contact with Bill Ellis and Frank Fisher from NSA. After he had completed army duty, returned to Chicago, and joined a law firm, he reported a strange encounter with Helen Jean Rogers, who he knew from his NSA years, sometime in 1956 or 1957. Freed said she called him of out the blue and they had lunch in Chicago, during which “she interrogated me about a wide variety of matters.” He never heard from her again. The timing of their lunch suggests that Rogers was casting about for someone who could do further work in India or elsewhere overseas. See Chapter 10, Shifting Battlefields, for Rogers’ role in India during the summer of 1956.

November 30, 1954 M/NSA Box 103 (Lunn), Harry Lunn letter to Dale Jorgenson, Reed College. He had recommend Jorgenson for a Fulbright, “citing your work in the Oregon Federation and in N.S.A. and background, and so forth.” He simultaneously invited Jorgenson to apply for the NSA-sponsored summer seminar.

April 12, 1955, H/NSA Box 29 (Lunn) Lunn letter to Jim Edwards in Paris re NSA personnel. Re Crawford Young’s ability “to get out” of the army,” and do some work for NSA. He’s “sure to get a Fulbright only salary and travel expenses in Europe would be needed.” Lunn wanted Young to do some publicity for the 1956 International Student Conference. Young was subsequently awarded a Fulbright to England.

Author’s note: Nothing written here should disparage the independent qualifications (perhaps Freed aside) of those who did receive Fulbright awards, since all were highly qualified. The point is that the NSA relationship with Fulbright recipients was cost effective, since the CIA/FYSA did not have to pay a salary for a Fulbright recipient who could also act as an NSA representative while overseas. Nevertheless, the secret sharing of applicants would seem to be a breach of ethics on the part of IIE

Note 41: International affairs vice president funding: While Herman Neusch’s employer on September 14, 1953 is unknown, he had a history of working on youth activities, including the formation of the CIA-funded World Assembly of Youth (WAY) and the Young Adult Council (U.S. affiliate) of WAY. Known information from Catholic, NSA, and other archives includes:

According to Catholic archives, Neusch attended the International Youth Conference in London in 1948, and was elected Chair of the Social Action Committee. Correspondence between the U.S. Bishops’ Youth Department and the Archbishop of Westminster, indicate that Neusch and other delegates had worked closely with the U.S. State Department, and “were carefully indoctrinated for three months by mail….two weeks before sailing met in Washington…including meeting with State Department and were briefed by these people in IR [international relations].” In addition, once in Paris, the delegates met “8 solid days, morning, noon, and night…” During this time, the Youth Department director, Joseph Schieder, who accompanied the Catholic delegates to London in 1948, also “flew to Rome for a private meeting with the Pope, and reported back that the Holy Father was pleased [with the outcomes].” NCWC Social Action Youth, 1948-1949; October, 1948 Msgr. Howard J. Carroll to Archbishop of Westminster.

A November 13, 1948 report in the Jesuit periodical, America (p. 153-154) reported on Neusch and the London conference upon his return to the United States, along with his plans to sponsor a program in the United States for displaced persons. Subsequently, the World Student Service Fund administered the displaced persons program, and NSA assumed responsible for contacts on American campuses.

October 29, 1949, Neusch was named as a delegate to the founding meeting of the pro-West World Assembly of Youth in Brussels. Minnesota/USYC Box 47 (YAC 49-50).

August 13, 1951, Helen Jean Rogers wrote a confidential letter to Herb Eisenberg re Neusch, who had suggested that Rogers talk to a Texas funding source. This is the first known instance of Neusch acting as a go-between for NSA funding. H/NSA Box 32 (Rogers).

November n.d., 1951, William Dentzer wrote to Avrea Ingram about the rumored appointment of Herman Neusch to a position in Paris. The letter implies but is not clear that Dentzer hoped Neusch could also represent NSA in Europe. H/NSA Box 29 (Corres, 1950-1954)

December 19, 1951, Avrea Ingram letter to William Dentzer reported a telephone conversation with Helen Jean Rogers re Neusch in Paris, which included her request to Neusch to send $200 in funds to Ingram. H/NSA Box 104 (INC)

Note 62: Harry Lunn: In Harry Lunn’s obituary, William A. Turnage of the Ansel Adams Trust claimed that Lunn turned down a CIA desk job in 1967 because he “missed espionage, with its back stabbings, treachery and betrayal.”

Several prominent U.S. government figures joined the Ford Foundation, including Franklin Lindsay (OPC), Richard M. Bissell, Jr. (Marshall Plan), John J. McCloy (War Department/U.S. High Commissioner for Germany), and later McGeorge Bundy (National Security Advisor/JFK). Francis Stonor Saunders (Cultural Cold War) and Eric Chester Thomas (Covert Network) explore the relationships between the Ford Foundation and the CIA. Evan Thomas (The Very Best Men) also writes about cooperation between Allen Dulles and the Ford Foundation. (See General Bibliographies)